of Israel, extending through nearly a thousand years-it records the rise and fall of dynastiesthe setting up and the pulling down of kings of Judah and Israel-and yet never even alludes to the power according to whose will the changes were effected. It describes the progress of warsthe ministry of prophets—the deposition of high priests, and the transfer of the priesthood to others -the apostasy of tribes and cities, and the efforts to reclaim or punish idolaters-and yet the chief actor in all these matters, the Sanhedrin, is passed by in total and mysterious silence. Is this credible? Is such an omission possible? Just as possible as to write a history of Rome, excluding all mention of the senate or an account of the English Revolution, without once alluding to the Parliament.

But the sacred history is not merely silent. It negatives the possibility of the Sanhedrin's existence. Its statements are so directly opposed to all that the Talmud says of this court, that both accounts cannot possibly be true. The Talmud says that by the Sanhedrin the king was appointed. The Old Testament relates that first Saul, and afterwards David, were appointed kings, and that Samuel was the only human agent that intervened between them and God. The Talmud says, that according to the will of the Sanhedrin wars were waged. The Old Testament describes the wars of Jephthah and Gideon, Saul and David, Hezekiah and Josiah, but ascribes them to the sole will of the

judge or king. The Talmud says, that to the Sanhedrin alone belonged the jurisdiction over the High Priest. The Old Testament declares that both Saul and Solomon deposed High Priests, and set up others, according to their sole will, without opposition or protest from any. To enumerate all the particulars in which the Scripture history negatives the fables about the Sanhedrin would be to transcribe most of the historic books, and no inconsiderable portion of the Prophets. The Scripture ignores altogether the existence of this tribunal in the most eventful periods of Jewish history, and it is only with difficulty that the rabbies can discover an apparent link of connexion between it and the Sanhedrin. The Talmud asks, “Whence is it proved that the great Sanhedrin was to consist of seventy-one members?" and answers, "Because it is written, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel.' Moses in addition makes seventyone."* But this is mere assumption. A little consideration of the passage, Numbers xi. 16, will show that these elders did not form a supreme court, nor, indeed, a court at all. Moses required help. "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me." (Numb. xi. 14. Comp. Exod. xviii.) But what relief could he have found in seventy assessors? Seventy separate

*

מניין לגדולה שהיא של ע"א שנא' אספה לי שבעים איש מזקני ישראל ומשה על גביהן.-.1 .Sanhedrin, fol

C

judges scattered through the several tribes would be a help. But, to be obliged, besides hearing the causes, to collect the opinions of seventy disputatious rabbies would have been a remedy far worse than the disease. The words of Moses himself, Deut. i. 15, proves that these persons were not assessors in one court, but subordinate judges, and that to Moses was the last appeal. "So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment: but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it." The idea of appeal entirely overthrows that of a supreme court, in which all sat together..

The asserters of the Sanhedrin's authority, feeling the lack of Scripture testimony, have invented a line of succession to supply the defect, but the attempt is too clumsy to require much consideration. At the very commencement there is a chasm of at least 200 years from the time of Joshua to

that of Eli; and where the line proceeds with an appearance of regularity, it is defaced by palpable falsehood. Thus, after David, Ahijah, the Shilonite, is mentioned as the next President of the Council, and it is stated that he was one of those who took part in the Exodus, that is, he was about 500 years old when he was appointed to preside over the Sanhedrin. In like manner, the Prophet Jeremiah is made president in his days, whereas his whole history shows that instead of being the head of a despotic and powerful tribunal, he was a powerless and persecuted man. The attempt, therefore, to invent a history of the Sanhedrin, far from compensating for the silence of the Bible, increases in a tenfold degree the improbability of its existence.

There is one argument still which proves that the constitution of the Sanhedrin is totally different from the supreme court of appeal instituted by Moses, at variance with that institution, and consequently illegal, and that, therefore, the authority bestowed upon the latter cannot with any reason be claimed by the former. According to the Talmud, the Sanhedrin was to consist of three classes, Priests, Levites, and Israelites, with the proviso, that even though it should consist entirely of Israelites, without any admixture of priest or

* Preface to the Iad Hachazakah, fol. i., col. 1.
† Ibid.

Levite, it was a lawful Sanhedrin.* The supreme court instituted by Moses was to consist of only two classes at most, and might consist of priests only. The words are "Thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days." The Talmud enumerates the Levites as a distinct class. Moses reckons

them as one, "The priests, the Levites," from which it is plain that he was speaking only of that one class of the sons of Levi, who held the office of the priesthood: but not of that class whose sole designation was "The Levites." The second difference is more important still. In addition to Levites, the Sanhedrin was to have Israelites, but in the court appointed by Moses, there could be but one lay Israelite at most. For besides the priests, Moses names only the judge, that is, the civil governor. If the judge happened to be a lay Israelite, as was the case with Jephthah, the Gileadite, and Sampson, who was of the tribe of Dan, then the supreme court had one Israelite. But if, as was the case with Eli and Samuel, the judge was himself a priest, then the supreme court consisted exclusively of priests.† In neither case,

* ומצוה להיות בסנהדרין גדולה כהנים ולויים שנא' ובאת אל הכהנים הלוים ואם לא מצאו אפילו היו כולם ישראלים

Hilchoth Sanhedrin, c. ii. 2.—7018 7 7

The Douay annotators differ from the Rabbies, speaking of this court of appeal as if it were always composed exclusively of Priests. "For a full and assured decision of all